Final answer:
Dr. Schmidt's research on factors that activate and direct behavior toward goals pertains to the field of motivation, which is central to understanding how individuals are driven to achieve their aims.
Step-by-step explanation:
Dr. Schmidt, who studies the factors that activate and direct behavior toward an individual's goals, is focusing on the field of motivation. Motivation is the psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal and elicits, controls, and sustains certain goal-directed behaviors. This field encompasses the reason why individuals are motivated, which relates to the discipline of studying motivations. The work of theorists such as Maslow, who proposed the hierarchy of needs, heavily influences this area of study, with insights into how motivations vary from basic physiological needs to complex ones such as self-actualization.
Skinner's behaviorism and Bandura's social-cognitive theory also provide perspectives on how behavior is learned and adjusted based on reinforcements, punishments, cognitive processes, and the social context. These contributions highlight how motivation interacts with learning, thinking, behavior, and the social environment to shape personality over time.
Answer: D) Motivation